Mermaids or When I'm being honest

Back in October I was playing along with the whole "inktober"  make something inky every day thing. I'd say it was a particularly rough month for me, but with how often I use that phrase I think it's just kind of a perpetual thing. 

Anyhow, I wanted to pretend to have some sort of inspiration so I could post something neat-o on instagram instead of another fucking hand. I started to go for a very safe, very cliche mermaid. And then I veered wildly off into what chronic depression / anxiety has felt like to me. That I am being gnawed at and fighting constantly no matter how well I look like I am doing or how much creative energy I am putting out into the world.

I came up with this little sketch and really liked the concept. It kept bouncing around in my head and finally last week I had time to revisit it. 

This started with redrawing the sketch with actual human anatomy in mind. I notice I tend towards the same simplified style when I am doodling, which gets the point across for me to redraw it later, is all I can really say about it. 

I tried to de-cute the depression fish monster a bit while I was at it. 

Carved a stamp. I like texture in my stamps, usually, so I tend to make sure to carve neatly so that any stray lines capture the form instead of just being wonky. Same concept as if you were making a drawing just with a bunch of lines, except you don't know for sure which are going to actually show up until it's done. 

Print of the stamp. Also how I realized I really need to buy an ink pad that costs more than a buck if I am going to spend so much time dealing in stamps now. 

I did a test print on a dictionary page. And determined I also need to just get some good printing ink and find where my brayer got off to. 

It amused me, in a sort of sad way, that one of the conversations I had when showing the prints off went like this:

"Look, I made a stamp."

"I see. It's a mermaid."

"Well, kinda. It's a woman being eaten by a horrible fish monster."

"Oh."

"See? She's trying to hold it off so it won't consume her completely."

"huh. She looks like she's doing well and pretty happy."

Which I guess just means I got exactly what I was going for in the stamp. 

place your bets now if next week will be back to pets. 

inktober 2017 part 1

It is October. It is cold. I really want to just hide in bed with my electric tea kettle and weep softly to myself. But for some reason I am doing inktober and just keep showing up. Here's my first eleven drawings. 

Day one. I never use the prompts for things like this. Prompts are hard enough for me to work from anyway, but I just generally don't like restrictions. So I started off perched in the corner of the bathtub watching over the beardie I've been babysitting. Trust me, it was nerve-wracking since I am using  the backs of the pages in the full sketchbook from last post.

Day two. A hand. Really my go to now, as you all know. I've been struggling a bit with inspiration, so I keep just falling back to hands.

Day three. One drawing exercise I like is drawing a self portrait, looking down. It's good practice in perspective and also makes for a pretty interesting drawing. 

Day four. I tend to over do shading when I draw because I always bee line towards realism, which is weird because I don't actually follow through with the time it takes to achieve realism, so I end up with a lot of shading stylized. Anyway, I tried not to do that and really liked the results. I've been trying in the other art I have been doing to put in more bold colors and interpretation instead of beelining for the comfort zone of crappy inefficient photocopier.

Day five. I just was not feeling it. I started in for a super detailed lizard hand (because I almost started another me hand) and just lost interest. The result is a sketch I really enjoy because it gets the gist across fine without a ton of extra. 

Day 6. Back to hands and messy shading again. Although I do still like the hands and I enjoy doing them, and enjoy doing art I enjoy...

Day 7. ...I really really want to not let this be my new rut. At least today has some color, although I still went right back to that sloppy ass ugly cross hatching. I need someone to come 'round with a spray bottle and watch me while I draw.

Day eight. I actually missed a day and made this up the next. It might be yet another hand, but the bold lines and minimal shading please me greatly. This style feels so much cleaner while still looking like "my" style. Well, kinda. My sloppy crosshatching and over shading make everything I draw look kinda filthy, really.

Day nine. Just wanting to goof around a bit, I started with drawing some ceramic teeth I had lying around and then decided to give them a mouth and a monster. The kinda realish and gory look of the mouth teamed with the derpy ass monster cracks me up, even though I wish I had taken the rest of the drawing to the same level as the mouth.

Day ten. Oh gee. another fucking hand. Started painting with the inks a bit though, which is divine.

Day eleven. Almost blew it off. Almost did a hand. Almost did a cliche' mermaid. Ended up doing a little conceptual deal of how I have been feeling especially the last few weeks. No matter how much light I sprinkle on, how much I create, how much I get my exercise and sleep and three meals a day and blah blah blah, I still feel like I am being consumed by a black mass. But I keep showing up and sprinkling the light on and hoping it will feel less that way tomorrow.

That's all I got this week. Keep sprinkling on the light and I'll show up again next week.